American football: US sweetheart loses his soul-mate

Nation forced to consider life after Madden - the commentator as famous as Muhammad Ali - as co-presenter retires

By the end of Super Bowl XXXVI in the small hours of this morning, another piece of the American landscape had changed. Gone from the television screen was the silver-haired gridiron broadcaster Pat Summerall, a former kicker for the New York Giants who came closer to Dan Maskell than anyone this side of the Atlantic with commentary that was as high on relevant detail as it was devoid of cliche or padding.

But if his retirement is a blow to the school of whispering Dan and consummate professionals like Peter O'Sullevan and Richie Benaud, and the theory that good commentary is like an iceberg in that seventh eighths of the knowledge on which it is based remains below the surface, the big question it begs does not involve the identity of his successor.

That is the preoccupation of Fox TV executives. What concerns America more is the effect of Summerall's leaving on the man who is arguably the most successful sportscaster of all time: John Madden.

For 21 years Summerall, low key, dignified, occasionally droll, and Madden, a huge, moose-like compound of heart and soul and fractured English, have been the ultimate partnership in American television sport. Howard Kossell, the former lawyer turned sportscaster who died in 1995 after riding to fame with Muhammad Ali and making Monday Night Football an enduring institution, will probably never be surpassed as a figure of controversy. Reconditioned television sets were raffled in bars so that the winner could heave a housebrick through the screen in the middle of a Kossell rant. But Kossell knew precisely what he was doing. Madden simply plays himself.

Now the fear is that with Summerall gone and Madden nearing his 66th birthday, he will point his custom-built cruiser bus – he got off a plane in Houston 21 years ago and has never flown since – to the sunset of his native California for the last time. In the minds of much of the nation Summerall's farewell is sad. Madden's would be a disaster. It would be a bit like losing the most beloved of uncles, a big, bear-hugging amiable man about whom you always knew that behind the good cheer he could tell you much of what you needed to know about both the glory and the pain of life.

Is that pitching it high for a caller of sports? Not, probably, if you know the style and the impact of the big man who swopped the sideline – he coached the cult-team Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl victory over Minnesota Vikings during 10 volatile but consistently successful years beside the Bay – for the broadcasting booth which opened up to him the heart of the nation.

"Madden has always been the real thing," says Tom Archdeacon, a columnist of the Dayton News. "Unlike so many people in his trade, he doesn't polish an act. He gets down to the business. You only have to look back on his professional record as a coach to understand that he knows every inch of the game. But he also understands, in a way so many pros don't, why fans love the game, what they want from it. They want passion and dreams and, boy, can Madden give it to them. He can also tell them what is really happening."

Support for that testimonial comes from another American icon, the former queen of ice skating and the Olympic gold medallist Peggy Fleming.

Fleming was on the East Coast the day the terrorists struck at New York and Washington, and with all flights cancelled, she needed to get back to her California home. She hitched a ride on the jungle-painted bus which each week of the season moves Madden from his home near San Francisco, his regular Chicago hotel suite, and an apartment in John Lennon's old New York Dakota building beside Central Park.

"Crossing America with John was a fantastic experience," reports Fleming. "We stopped in little towns and places like Omaha, Nebraska. The nation was in shock and mourning and it was as if John was leaving little bits of re-assurance all across the country. I was so inspired that in Omaha I bought two American flags and put them on the bus. It was as if so many people were reaching out to someone warm and solid and so familiar – and he was reaching out to them."

Madden admits to the deep shock and disorientation he felt watching the fall of the World Trade Centre on his big, high-definition television screen. "Sure I was in shock, we were surrounded by war in Manhattan. I suppose everyone needed re-assurance and I got that travelling across the country. I was reminded of the strength of all those places which made up America."

He was mobbed in the diners and the roadhouses – his favourite is called Chuy's in Van Horn, Texas – and by the time he dropped off the ice queen and rolled home to the big house overlooking the Bay he felt drained by all the exchanges of emotion.

Such impact, and the resulting affection, did not happen overnight. It was built slowly but inexorably on a rock of mutual confidence and over the years the opinion that Madden is a unique broadcasting phenomenon has grown surely. "I think I know what America wants because I know what I want and if nothing else I sure am American," he says.

Indeed, if he had not happened, the suspicion must be Norman Rockwell would have invented him. One critic summed up the style of Madden, whose favourite prop is a "telestrater' on which he sketches diagrams of vital plays, in less than flattering terms. He said: "Madden's built like an old nose guard, talks like a Batman comic book and draws like a fifth grade art student." What the critic omitted was the chemical process that occurs the moment Madden picks up the mike and comes on to camera. One result is a recognition – and affection – which puts him in the top 10 of the "Q" list, a ranking by the marketing industry which rates the power of a public figure's celebrity. Madden is bracketed slightly below Michael Jordan and level with Muhammad Ali. His Madden's NFL is the most successful sports video game in history. It recently hit 20 million sales. His contract with Fox, which has another year to run, is worth $8m a year – a figure he can easily double by advertising such varied products as beer, foot powder and kitchen hardware.

A typical example of Madden's broadcasting technique, which includes a vocabulary laden with exclamations – shoot, doggone it, gosh and Jiminy Christmas are among the most used – came early in his broadcasting career. At the end of one big game the cameras were playing on scenes of jubilation on the winning touchline. The successful coach was surrounded by assistants and players and club executives, plus the owner. Suddenly, Madden demanded the cameras shift to the other touchline. There the losing coach stood utterly alone. Said Madden: "There you go, that's the story of football and life... that's the whole ball of wax."

Such human touches merely augment a technical knowledge and insight, and a willingness to share it with the public, which has perhaps not been the mark of such British legends as Murray Walker and the soon retiring Bill McLaren. They were the "voices" of their sports. Madden is the heart and the sinew and, crucially, the brain of his.

He insists he will have to be dragged away from his American odyssey on the big bus which has impinged even on the troubled imagination of Mike Tyson. Reports Madden: "Mike Tyson is the only person who ever asked me how fast the thing can go. I told him: 'I don't know, you know we're not drag-racing 18-wheelers across Montana.'"

Madden says that it was not fear of flying which first persuaded him to hit the road. "It was more a claustrophobia thing. I just decided before we took off for Houston that was the last time I was going to sit in an aircraft and see the crew go through that safety drill." Dennis Miller, the highly successful stand-up comedian who has struggled from time to time as a colour man for Monday Night Football, has an interesting theory. He believes that, like all football coaches, Madden is a control freak, and that sitting in an airplane and putting yourself in other people's hands is an ultimate loss of control. "I'm always fascinated by amiability which might mask something else," says Miller. But he adds quickly enough: "There's no doubt John Madden is a big man with a big brain."

Perhaps even more important in today's slick and cynical television sports market is the size of Madden's heart. How big is it? Big enough for Sports Illustrated to call the owner of the big bus "America's sweetheart".

America's sweetheart? To that, the old coach could say only "Jiminy Christmas".